One of the most incredible sports turnarounds in all of sports history took place last night when the St. Louis Blues hockey team won their very first Stanley Cup championship. Less than six months ago in the middle of the NHL season the blues were a train wreck. January 2019 After 52 years the Blues still had no Stanley Cup. They are in last place in the entire conference. The coach was fired and an interim coach was appointed. A 25 year old rookie was named goalie who never played in the NHL. The odds were 250-1 they would not win the Stanley Cup.
Like I said, a train wreck. Yet, sometimes the sports gods like to shake things up. The magic of the Blues is enchanting. Way back when, I went to several Blues games in St. Louis in 1967, their first season. My brother played basketball at St. Louis University. I remember the hockey games and the arena seemed dark, smoke filled, and the Budweiser flowed freely.
The St. Louis Arena, first home of the Blues, was built in
1929. The Arena was not well-maintained
after the 1940s, and its roof was damaged by a February 1959 tornado. By the time the NHL's St. Louis Blues began playing
at the Arena, it had fallen into such poor condition that it had to be heavily
renovated in time for the 1967–68 season. As a condition of getting the
expansion franchise, Blues owner Sid Salomon Jr. purchased the Arena from
the Chicago Black Hawks, and spent several million dollars renovating the
building and adding some 3,000 seats to bring the total to almost 15,000.
It never stopped being renovated from that day on, and held
almost 20,000 seats by the time the Blues left the Arena in 1994. Many fans
considered its sight lines the best of any arena in the league, which is
remarkable considering that it was not originally built for hockey. It was also
known as one of the loudest arenas in the league.
In 1977, the Arena and the Blues were purchased by Ralston
Purina, which rechristened the building the Checkerdome after the
company's checkerboard logo. By 1983, the cereal and pet food corporation had
lost interest in the Blues and the Arena, and forfeited the team to the league.
The team was purchased by Harry Ornest, a Los Angeles-based businessman,
who promptly returned the Arena to its original name.
After the Blues moved to their new home, the venue now known
as Enterprise Center,
The Miracle on Ice 2019 Season Here is the newest Miracle on Ice in America, as the team that refused to give up finally came of age and today St. Louis can forget the floods and disasters plaguing them all year, forget the blues, and celebrate the new world champion St. Louis Blues hockey team as they finally break the jinx and bring home the Stanley Cup. This is how Sporting News describes the remarkable past six months.
As
stated above, the season was looking grim on this date. Before games started
that Thursday night, St. Louis was 15-18-4 (34 points) with a minus-21 goal
differential and dead last in the league.
That
night, the Blues went out and beat the reigning Stanley Cup champion Washington
Capitals 5-2.
Jan. 5
St.
Louis recalled 25-year-old goaltender Jordan Binnington from San Antonio (AHL).
Two days later, he made his first start of the season and his career. The rest
has been history.
Beginning
with his 3-0 shutout of the Philadelphia Flyers on Jan. 7, the 2011 draft pick
has posted a 21-5-1 record with an impressive 1.78 goals-against average and
.932 save percentage.
Jordan Binnington of the @StLouisBlues became the 35th goaltender
in League history to register a shutout in his first career NHL start and the
eighth to do so in the past 15 years. #NHLStatspic.twitter.com/XipaVcRYIQ
Binnington,
who eventually took over the No. 1 spot from Jake Allen, has had his name
thrown into the Calder Trophy and, dare we say, Vezina Trophy debates. He has
earned Player of the Week honors twice this season (second star on Jan. 14;
first star on Feb. 11) and was the NHL's Rookie of the Month for February.
Jan. 23-Feb. 19
Twenty-eight
days. In just 28 calendar days, the Blues changed their season.
After losing 4-3 to the Kings
on Jan. 21, St. Louis went on a tear, winning a franchise-record 11 consecutive
games. After going from a game under. 500 (21-22-5) to 10 games over (32-22-5),
the Blues were suddenly in a playoff spot and poised to make the postseason for
the 42nd time in franchise history.
Over the course of those 11
games, St. Louis went 493 minutes and 42 seconds without trailing. Rookie
sensation Binnington won nine in a row - tied for fifth-most by a rookie
netminder in NHL history. The team's points leader, Ryan O'Reilly, scored 12
points. Vladimir Tarasenko notched an awe-inspiring 20 points (10 goals, 10
assists). Tarasenko, whose name was in the trade rumor mill
in the beginning of January , was named
the NHL's third star of the month for February.
Every season
has a Cinderella team, a team with an amazing story. Worst-to-first St. Louis
was the team this year. The glass slipper fits.
SN's Tom Gatto
contributed to this report.
Thank you Blues for showing us that professional sports is not about superstars, outrageous salaries, major media markets, swollen egos and greed, but about the perseverance, hard work, fan loyalty, blue collar work ethic, and love of the game.
Congratulations to the St. Louis Blues and to the Boston Bruins who gave us a seven game thriller. During the entire playoffs neither the Blues or the Bruins never had a fight break out on the ice, including during the championship series. It is rare to see professional hockey without fights and I honor their sportsmanship. Here is what the rest of the nation had to say about the amazing miracle on ice in the 2019 Stanley Cup.
Thanks to 32 saves from Jordan Binnington, the
Blues took down the Bruins in Game 7 to win their first-ever Stanley Cup.
Laura Branigan “Gloria" Blues Theme Song
From Worst to First,
Blues Complete the Perfect Comeback with Stanley Cup Win
From
the NHL’s cellar at the beginning of January to Stanley Cup champions just five
months later, the Blues flipped the script in incredible fashion to end its
52-year championship drought.
The city Stan Kroenke labeled an economic backwater sold out the Enterprise Center for a game in
Boston Wednesday night, and then Busch Stadium, too. The Cardinals were in
Miami, and so upwards of 45,000 fans filled their stadium combined with the
18,000+ down Clark Avenue to keep the party going in St. Louis, the party the
Blues spoiled Sunday and then reignited Wednesday with a 4–1 win
in Boston.
The Game 7 victory marked
the city’s first Cup since the Blues’ inception in 1967, and it came as the
conclusion to something like the perfect sports story. The team was the worst
in the NHL on the morning of Jan. 3, a date that’s loomed large in St. Louis’s
consciousness this spring—since the 11-game winning streak in January and
February that vaulted the team up the standings, since it found itself
improbably the No. 3 seed in the Central Division at the start of the playoffs.
It’s been a sprint all spring, from worst to first for this team that was so
recently left for dead.
The Blues took the Cup in
fitting style: on the road, up against a wall, and thanks to goaltending that
puts the word ridiculous to shame. It was Jordan Binnington’s promotion from
the AHL to starter in January that sparked this run, and the team leapfrogged
the rest of the Western Conference thanks to a spectacular road record—it was
12-4-5 away from the Enterprise Center from Jan. 23, the start of the streak,
until the end of the regular season—and the looming sense that it was one game
away from its fortunes reversing. But that’s the beauty of this team: It was
never defined by its worst moments, always believed it was more than a fluky
streak.
Wednesday, it proved that
was the case.
Wednesday, it allowed the
Bruins to at times control the pace of the game, but that didn’t matter.
Binnington had 32 saves, allowing just one Boston goal, for a .970 save
percentage. And the Bruins pounded him in the first and second periods
especially, as his limbs flew left, right and upside down to deflect barrage
after onslaught.
For much of the game, St. Louis had a two-goal cushion thanks
to first-period scores by eventual Conn Smythe Trophy winner Ryan
O’Reilly and team captain Alex Pietrangelo, but it wasn’t until
Brayden Schenn knocked in a goal at 11:25 in the third period that the game
seemed like it could finally break the Blues’ way, shattering the longest Cup
drought in the NHL.
They should never have
been here, these Blues, who swung big in free agency over the summer and then
sputtered in the fall. But that unlikely trajectory was familiar for so many people
instrumental to the chase: Binnington, who was the fifth-string goalie in the
organization when the season started, or Pat Maroon, the hometown kid who ended
up signing for less money late in free agency proceedings.
Then there’s Laila Anderson, the
11-year-old with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocystosis, a rare immune disorder,
who also happens to be a Blues superfan. She wasn’t able to leave the house
throughout most of her beloved team’s run in the second half of this season,
only to be permitted to start attending home games during the Western
Conference Final, when the Blues defeated the Sharks in six games. On
Tuesday, Laila learned doctors had cleared
her to fly to Boston at the Blues’ invitation, and barely 24
hours later, her favorite player, Colton Parayko, lowered the Cup for her to
kiss.
Throw the Vegas odds out
the window. Math doesn’t do this justice.
Math says a team in the
NHL’s cellar halfway through the season shouldn’t be playing in June, and
superstition says the Blues are never allowed to compete this long. They hadn’t
made the Stanley Cup Final since 1970, hadn’t even won a finals game until June
3. They’d been good, great sometimes, and always choked—but this year’s team
flipped the script.
This year’s team was very bad, on pace to be one of the
worst in franchise history, and instead of coasting into the postseason as so
many past iterations have, it clawed. St. Louis went 24-6-4 from Jan. 23 until
the end of the regular season, and Binnington posted six shutouts over that
span.
It continued to dominate—especially on the road—in the playoffs, tuning
out amped up crowds from Winnipeg to Dallas to San Jose to Boston, finally,
where it put the final stamp on a 10–3 road postseason record. Back in St.
Louis, rain poured on the fans at Busch Stadium, fans who couldn’t have cared
less what the Cardinals were doing down south, fans who screamed and danced and
couldn’t discern the downpour from their tears.
After a series plagued
with gripes about officiating, Game 7 was a clean one. There was just one
penalty, on St. Louis, and thus only two minutes of 5-on-4 play. The Bruins and
the Blues were able to match up at full strength and full emotion, and St.
Louis played like a team familiar with the brink—which is exactly what it’s
been all season.
It played like a team unconcerned with Tuukka Rask’s
near-perfection three nights earlier, or Boston’s glass-thumping, bellowing
crowd. It played like a team that’s not listened to what anyone’s said about it
all year, and it became just the seventh team to undergo a midseason coaching
change before hoisting the Cup. It’s perhaps the first to renegotiate its identity
so completely between January and June.
The Blues have been best
in the least likely circumstances, against the longest odds. One fan put down
$400 on the team during a January trip to Las Vegas. The odds then that the
Blues would win the Cup: 250–1. Wednesday night, he took home
$100,000. It might have seemed crazy at the time. It might have
seemed crazy last month.
For fans in St. Louis, it
probably still seems crazy. But eventually, the shock will wear off, and 52
years of futility will suddenly seem like maybe, just maybe, they were worth
it.
The last Cubs victory in the World Series was 1908, 108
years ago, the longest championship drought in all sports. For the Cleveland Indians it has been 68
years, since 1948, making the combined total of years without winning the
series an astounding 176 years.
The ratings will be through the roof as these two classic
franchises take the field, in the finals
of a hard fought series.
Both coaches, Joe Maddon of the Cubs and Terry Francona of
the Indians, are class acts. As Steve
Wulf of ESPN sports wrote;
"It's probably time to eject
"skipper" from the baseball lexicon. The word is just too inadequate.
The modern manager is so much more than the captain of a ship. He is a
counselor, a teacher, a leader, a thinker, a storyteller, a cheerleader and a
bearer of news, both good and bad. If there's one thing this epic World Series has
demonstrated, it's that the Cubs and Indians are here because of their
managers. It's not just a coincidence that two storied Midwestern franchises
with Cs on their uniforms are facing each other in the seventh game, hoping to
finally write a happy ending. It's also a dazzling demonstration of how the
manager has evolved in modern baseball. Joe Maddon and Terry Francona are both
Italian-American, both close to their families, both from small, working-class,
Pennsylvania
towns. They're not exactly alike -- the ready-for-his-close-up Joe likes fine
wine; the self-effacing Tito fondly recalls Boone's Farm -- but they share a
sensibility for their players, a willingness to think outside the box and a
gift for expressing their thoughts honestly and humorously."
The teams are young, hungry, and gritty with new stars being
born in every game. In spite of the
amazing drought in championships, these are two of the best teams in baseball
and deserve to be there. Both are
underdogs when it comes to the series but one will reign supreme and cast off
the decades old jinx.
The Cubs battled back from a 3-1 deficit and must win two
straight in Cleveland
to be world champions. One will win
tonight but in truth both are winners as they have brought America's favorite
past time back with class and power while for one night will knock politics
from the minds of the public hungry for a feel good story.
The following is a great account of game six by Yahoo Sports
writer Jeff Passon.
Cubs rout
Indians to force Game 7 of World Series
Jeff Passan,Yahoo Sports8
hours ago
CLEVELAND – Game 7 of the World
Series is coming Wednesday. This seemed almost preordained, even after the
Cleveland Indians found themselves in control of the Chicago Cubs. Both of
these franchises have spent far too long craving a championship for it to come
down to anything less than a do-or-die, empty-the-bullpens,
batten-down-the-hatches dance to 27 outs. This is a baseball dream, and it’s
coming live at 8 p.m.
Game 6 of the World Series came and went
Tuesday. It was a blowout. The Cubs thumped the Indians, 9-3, and made the
three-games-to-one advantage Cleveland
held seem like a millennium ago. By the third inning, flights were being booked
into Cleveland and ticket prices were spiking and the inevitability of 176
years of championship-free baseball boiling down to one game was titillating
the collective mind of a country suddenly enthralled with postseason baseball.
Mostly, admittedly, because of the Cubs. Lest
this further the Indians’ Other Team™ complex, the Cubs are the story
captivating the country, 108 years of heartbreak hanging over their heads,
their binary destinies either a delicious, satisfying end to it all or the most
painful tease yet. The Indians aren’t some mediocre story, of course, not with
their 68 years and the prospect of blowing the same lead their
across-the-street neighbors, the Cavs, came back from to steal a championship
from the Warriors over the summer.
This is baseball, of course, and there is no
singular, transcendent figure like LeBron James patrolling the diamond for the
either team. Corey Kluber has been the closest thing, and he’ll start for the
third time this series, giving Cleveland
its best hope after Trevor Bauer lost Game 5 and Josh Tomlin imploded in Game
6, the latter in a first-inning flurry and third-inning meltdown.
The Cubs’ first run-scoring burst wasn’t
entirely Tomlin’s fault. After Kris Bryant walloped a 433-foot home run with
two outs, Anthony Rizzo and Ben Zobrist roped back-to-back singles. Addison
Russell followed with a fly ball to right-center field that should’ve been an
out until a miscommunication between center fielder Tyler Naquin and right
fielder Lonnie Chisenhall caused the ball to drop between them. Rizzo and
Zobrist scored, staking Cubs starter Jake Arrieta a three-run lead.
Even though he needed no more, the Cubs
provided it in the third. A walk and two singles loaded the bases and prompted
Indians manager Terry Francona to pull Tomlin. Russell deposited the third
pitch from reliever Dan Otero 434 feet over the left-center field wall,becoming
the youngest player to hit a grand slam in a World Seriessince Mickey Mantle and tying a World
Series record with six RBIs. It was the third inning, the Cubs led 7-0 and Game
7 was practically inevitable.
Cleveland did muster a pair of
runs and was threatening in the seventh, with two on and two out. Cubs manager
Joe Maddon summoned closer Aroldis Chapman, who squeezed out of the jam by a
hundredth of a second. Francisco Lindor hit a chopper to Rizzo, whose flip to
Chapman came just in time to get Lindor – a call that was reversed after
first-base umpire Sam Holbrook called him safe.
The next inning was little trouble for
Chapman, and Maddon pulled him after a walk in the ninth at 20 pitches, a
number that shouldn’t significantly affect his ability to pitch multiple
innings in Game 7. It was a call made easier by Anthony Rizzo’s two-run home
run in the top of the ninth that gave Chicago a seven-run lead. Pedro Strop
gave up a run and Travis Wood recorded the final out for the Cubs. With starters
Jon Lester and John Lackey both available to pitch in Game 7, Chicago’s bullpen is fortified for its run at
history.
The Cubs are trying to do something only the
1925 Pirates, 1958 Yankees, 1968 Tigers, 1979 Pirates and 1985 Royals have
done: come back from a 3-1 deficit in the World Series. Here’s an even more
heartening note for Chicago:
Only the 1967 Red Sox and 1972 Reds game back to force a Game 7 after being
down 3-1 and lost the finale. These Cubs have adopted something of a Rocky
theme, with the original film and its sequels playing on clubhouse TVs before
Game 5, a tense 3-2 affair, nothing like the blowout of Game 6. It still imbued
in Chicago a greater sense of hope than the
gloom that hung over the city after Cleveland
took Games 3 and 4 at Wrigley Field. Game 5 brought back the signs that said
It’s Gonna Happen and left at least some semblance of optimism going into
Tuesday.
It was warranted, and
now, with standing-room-only tickets starting at $2,000 and actual seats
running closer to $2,500, with the highest TV ratings in decades expected, with
Major League Baseball riding this close-to-a-dream series to its
close-to-a-dream conclusion. Now all it needs is a compelling Game 7 that will
remind one city why the wait is worth it and the other about how getting so
close can feel worse than not being there at all.
It had been sixteen years since the women's soccer team last
won the World Cup in Women's Soccer. Long
gone were the memories of that 1999 group who produced the second World
Cup championship for the USA.
Here in America
we are not only used to winning, we expect to win, practically any kind of
sports competition. Yet soccer or
football, one of the most popular sports in the world, always struggled to get
a foothold in America.
No doubt, the American brand of football, not to be confused
with soccer or football everywhere else, never gave the other football a chance
here in the colonies. While American football
became one of the most popular contact sports in history, and one of the
richest in terms of the money it could generate, soccer remained far in the
background.
Of course, it did not help that the USA men's
soccer team has never achieved the fame of their women's counterpart. In fact the only time in history the men's
team reached the semi-finals of the World Cup was way back in 1930, eighty-five
years ago.
Brandi-Chastain-Womens-World-Cup-July-10-1999
So, the women had to carry the burden of success to keep soccer
alive in the USA.
There are professional leagues but they
seldom draw major crowds and certainly do not draw major investment. Only winning can do that, thus people paid
attention when the women won the first World Cup in women's soccer back in
1991.
Mia Hamm - Superstar
In 1999 they won their second World Cup powered by Mia Hamm and
throughout the relatively young history of women in the World Cup the USA women
have consistently been one of the top three teams in the world.
This year the team is much more media savvy, much more
physical, and got stronger in every match until meeting Japan in the finals
just like the last World Cup in 2011 when Japan won on penalty kicks. This year they never had a chance as four
American goals in the first sixteen minutes sealed the eventual American 5-2
victory.
In addition to drawing record TV audiences in their victory
drive, the Women's team became the first female team in our history given a
ticker tape parade through downtown Manhattan. It was a fitting tribute followed by an Espy
award for the best team in sports.
Thank you for reigniting American pride and taking the
negative news out of our lives for a time.
The New York Yankees, the most fabled franchise in sports history, won their 27th World Championship and their 40th American League Championship in this, their 108th year in existence. The value of this team is now measured in the billions of dollars, a striking return on the $8.7 million paid for the team at the last sale in 1973.
I was born a Yankees fan in Iowa, probably the only one in existence, a result of the mix up with the stork who was supposed to deliver me to the Rockefeller's of NYC instead of the Iowa farmers. To this day there is no better sports team in my own opinion.
Of course I have had my close up and personal moments with the Yankees thanks to my limited career in sports and the help of sports writers to get me in the Yankee dughouse with legendary teams of the 1960's and the old timer teams dating well back.
My own pictures taken from the dugout in the original Yankees Stadium include Mantle, Maris, Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Joe DiMaggio, and many other Hall of Famers from Yankee history.
When I worked for the Governor of New Jersey I got to know Yogi much better.
The Yankees franchise was founded in 1901, 108 years ago. The 40 American League championships and 27 World championships are unmatched in all of professional sports in America. In baseball the closest team is the St. Louis Cardinals with 11 World titles.
The Yankees were called the Baltimore Orioles until they moved to NYC in 1903 and the name was changed to New York Hilanders. In 1913 they were first called the Yankees and in 1923 Yankee Stadium was built seating an astounding 58,000 people, the largest sports stadium in America. It was indeed the house that Ruth built.
This year, 2009, the new Yankee Stadium was opened and in keeping with legendary tradition, the Yankees won the World Series the first year of the new stadium like they did the first year of the old Yankee Stadium back in 1923.
The Bronx Bombers will celebrate with the people of NYC with the traditional ticker tape parade in lower Manhattan down the Canyon of Heroes, a spectacle in itself. The parade will be Friday.
There is something soothing about a Yankees World Series win, as if maybe the world and all it's chaos can return to normal where heroes are recognized, people are compassionate, money is used to do good instead of fueling greed and God and country can again be honored.
